A Secret Birthright

She approached the bedroom he’d given her. The one farthest from his. She’d hoped he’d cut her off from his passion because he’d thought she was his brother’s woman, that when she confessed, his desire would be reignited.

But it had just been extinguished. The bad taste of her duplicity, however he mentally rationalized and accepted it, must have put out the lust that would have burned itself out sooner rather than later.

God, what was she still doing here? He no longer wanted her. Ryan no longer needed her. She had to go away now. She’d solve all their problems this way. She’d unburden Fareed of her presence, and Ryan was too young, he’d forget her in a month.

As for her, she might be less miserable without them, than with them and unwanted and unneeded. She might even survive.

She wouldn’t if she stayed.

She opened the door, hesitated on the threshold.

What was she doing here anyway? She didn’t need to gather her stuff. It wasn’t hers in the first place. Nothing here had ever been hers.

She’d leave like she’d come, with nothing.

And this time, Fareed wouldn’t come running to stop her. He’d stand by and would be relieved to see her go. He might even help…

“Do you know what I wanted to do when I saw you standing on that podium?”

Goose bumps stormed through her. The deep purr, like a coiled predator’s, issued from the bed.

Fareed.

She grabbed at the light switch, her hand hitting and missing it many times before soft, indirect light illuminated him.

He was wearing an abaya again, both it and the loose pants beneath, white and gold trimmed this time. His hair gleamed wet and sooty from a shower, his skin glowed with the same bronze of the headboard he was propped against, with his legs stretched out almost to the end of the bed, crossed at the ankles.

He hurt her with his beauty.

What was he doing here? What did he mean when he asked…

His voice drowned everything again, answering his own question. “I wanted to walk up to you, gather your papers, tell you that you didn’t need to solicit the world’s approval or endorsement anymore, that you have mine, that I would put everything that I have at your disposal. Then I wanted to haul you over my shoulder and take you where I can ravish you.”

She’d walked up to the bed. Was looking down at him.

Was she dreaming this?

But he was saying things she hadn’t even dreamed he’d say.

And he was saying more, infinitely better than any dream. “Then I discovered you were engaged. I was enraged, stunned. How could you not wait for me? I was also noble, stupid and I walked away. Four years of stoic deprivation later, you tell me you walked out of that conference and on that fiancé I fantasized about exiling to some undiscovered island.”

His hand clasped hers, tugged her down. She fell over him, disbelief and debilitating relief racing through her. He melted her softness and longing into his hardness and demand. She shook, gasped, resuscitation surging from his every word and touch.

“Then instead of our siblings paving the way for our being together, everything they did kept us apart and it took a string of tragedies to unite us as we should have been from that first day.”

He dissolved clothes that felt like thorns off her inflamed flesh as he spoke. She writhed in his arms, a flame igniting higher as he tore off his own clothes, the feel of his flesh her fuel.

He crushed her lips under his, breached her in a tongue-thrusting kiss that had her begging for his invasion now, no buildup, just total, instant possession.

He rolled her over, pressed his flesh onto her every exposed inch, driving her into the bed. “Then you were mine, then you were not, then you were my wife, but not really, then you set me free, when my freedom lies in making you mine, in being yours.”

“You mean…you really wanted…this?” she gasped.

“Want is a flimsy, insubstantial emotion. Does it feel like this to you?” He pressed the red-hot length of his erection, of every cabled muscle and sinew into her. Nothing flimsy or insubstantial there; everything invincible, enduring.

“I meant…you told me the marriage was only for Ryan, and to fulfill Hesham’s last request.”

“What would you tell the woman you were disintegrating for, if she looked like she was breaking up inside with grief and guilt, if you thought it was over your dead brother, and that she was hating you and herself for succumbing to your seduction and her needs? And when you’re buried under misconceptions, would you tell her, and yourself, to get over that trivial matter of a beloved dead lover and brother, demand she be your wife for real?”

She gaped at him. And gaped some more. What he was saying…

Everything she hadn’t been creative enough, daring enough, to hope for. His own version of her own misconceptions.

But one thing she couldn’t get her head around yet. “You mean…you would have asked me to marry you…anyway?”

“Why so disbelieving? You wanted me from the moment you saw me, too. And you wanted me forever because it was how I wanted you. But I wasn’t going to propose yet because I thought I first had to battle your issues with my family’s clout and your fear of being a kept woman. Little did I know that, although those might have been considerations under other circumstances, you were only bound on sacrificing your heart for Ryan’s safety.”

She shook a head spinning with the revelations and realizations. “Fareed…I—I…can’t…”

“Yes, you can, Gwen. Like you let me go, to be noble and self-sacrificing again, you can take me back. I’m giving you all that I am again, this time when you know it’s all for you. Because I fell in love with you from that first moment, thought I’d be alone forever if I didn’t have you.”

“Fareed, oh, my love…”

He captured her hot gasp. “Say this again.”

“I might never say anything else ever again. I’ve loved you from that first moment, too, knew that if I can’t have you, I’d never want anyone else. Then…”

“Then everything happened. But we found each other again, and this, what we share, is worth every heartache we endured getting here, earning it. And even though Hesham and Lyn are gone, they left us Ryan, the most beautiful part of them. We’ll continue to love them both in him, and he’ll have us both to love.”

“He…uh…might soon have more…people to love,” she mumbled.

He stared at her. “You mean…”